Page 60 of Elanie & the Empath
“Is this why you’ve come here?” Sem asked. “Why you called Elanie here?”
Gol’s grin was magnanimous. “We are not a rebellion, if that’s what concerns you, Portisan. We don’t have plans for worlds domination. All Thura offers is a chance for bionics to live freely.” His eyes landed on mine, light vanishing inside his black pupils. “It is up to you to take it.”
“And if I don’t?” I asked. “If I don’t want to stay here, can I go back to my ship?”
“We keep no bionic against their will.” After draining his goblet, Gol rose to his feet. “Your mate may have been right. This is a lot to take in all at once. Rest today. We will feast tonight. In time, I have no doubt that a decision will become clear to you.”
The grint followedus back to our hut, sprinting inside before Sem could close the door.
“I guess we have a houseguest,” I said, watching the animal hop up onto our dresser while I rubbed at my throbbing temples.
Sem crossed the room to stand behind me. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” I plopped down on our bed. “Are you?”
He shrugged. “Better than if I were dead. I mean, I’d feel a lot more comfortable if I wasn’t the only non-bionic here,but it could be worse. That pineapple was amazing. And they have running water here. And toilets!”
He seemed so much healthier already, his pants clinging low to his hips, his shirt riding up as he ran his hand through his hair, revealing a sliver of deep blue skin, the line of smooth muscle cutting down to that part of him I’d felt growing hard against my thigh this morning.
“Do you have a headache?” he asked.
I nodded absently, still staring at his exposed skin.
“Can I help?”
Another nod.
Sitting down beside me, he slid his hands over my shoulders, then up to my neck, squeezing and kneading my strained muscles.
I moaned when he hit a particularly tight spot. “That’s nice.”
His voice sank, low and rumbling. “What else are mates for if not to make each other feel good?”
Let me make you feel good.As his words from my dream sent a shiver through me, his fingers threaded into my hair. When he started massaging my scalp, I nearly fell off the bed. I’d never experienced this sensation before, fingertips pressing and circling, nails scraping gently over my skin. What else had I never experienced? What else could he show me?
Just as I considered asking him, just as his hands moved back down to my shoulders, his fingertips sliding under the straps of my shirt, the grint jumped onto the bed, scampered up my arm, and wrapped itself around my neck.
I froze. “What does it want?” I hissed, sucking in a breath when its tail coiled more tightly. “Is it trying to choke me?”
With a soft laugh, Sem said. “I don’t think so. I think itlikes you.” He scratched the grint behind one of its ears. Then his expression sobered. “Did you mean what you said to Gol?” he asked. “About wanting to get back to the ship?”
While I rubbed the grint’s beak and it emitted some sort of rumbling sound from its chest that might have been a purr, I considered the question. Did I want to go back to the ship? The things that Gol had said still echoed between my ears. Words likerecommissionedandunjustandabuse. I knew what awaited me back on the ship. But what might life be like here, as a free bionic?
“Would you want to stay here?” I asked.
It took him a while to answer, and when he did, I wanted to believe him.
“Elanie, I want to be wherever you are.”
Staring up at him, I said, “I want that too.”
His gaze sank to my mouth, and time stretched. Or maybe I stretched it, lingering over every nanosecond it took his tongue to slide over his bottom lip. Every degree that his head tilted. Every ounce of weight sinking into the mattress as he leaned toward me?—
Ba-kawk!
“Saints alive!”Sem jerked away from the shrieking grint around my neck. “What in the hells was that?”
Baa-kawk!it cried again, even louder.
